Oh Beautiful Dress!
Dale Houstman
Oh Beautiful Dress!
_______________
Oh Beautiful Dress! Window upon the crime & further in time
but not lace because lace seems far from well.
We cut lace into hankies for the boys. No, not lace
but serviceable otter with a few strands of rags.
And there the deadly harvest of the goldsmith!
Oh Beautiful Dress! Bonfire of ready money
watered like a drink in any honest tavern;
what gets lodged against you gets lodged against you;
it's either rubies or rhinos
and then comes the Collector.
There is the business of improvidence
which arises from the deterioration of fashion
and is a ventilation of deity.
But not lace because lace seems far from well
and we fear to leave lace alone in the dark.
Oh Beautiful Dress! Pearl of murder
and the scaled fillet like a frost flower
fringes the husband's jaw with ice
and her wet glance is a sleeping science
and then comes the Conductor.
This train is carrying wheeled dress racks
and all the hands are dreaming of a dress
in the shape of an anchor,
and there is a tiny train of slinkveal
coming up out of the neck.
Oh Beautiful Dress! Calcium rose
riding on the train carrying deified fabrics.
But not lace because lace seems far from well
decorating the window upon the crime
it's either rubies or rhinos.
And then comes the Landlord.
__________
dmh
Tom Woolery
Much teeth in this, Dale. I'm enjoying the bones of it, but I can't see
the whole thing yet. I'm going to have to take a long look and come
back—maybe after I've had enough coffee to stimulate enough brain cells
to understand.
Tom
up...@webtv.net
Oh Beautiful Dress!
dmh
...........................................................................
Dale,
This is rich. You never disappoint, in fact you entice with that
mischievous grin separating each stanza. Every line realized a familiar
word within an unfamiliar context or found a fresh awareness disguised
as a common phrase.
Reading your manipulation of preconceived notions was an exciting
experience, one I gladly exchanged for my loss of control. The train of
thought took me to places even you had not intended. There were ornate
dress codes on Navy ships with men polishing and then lacing up their
shoes, hoping for an honor. I saw a garden with a need for fertilizer. A
wild flower called Lace, became a tiny maiden who danced upon the window
of a child's imagination. There was a gold crown placed on a tooth. A
lace train trailing from a woman's jewelled wedding gown. Bones in a
corset, or the horn from a Rhino. A particular color of lace hankie
deliberately tucked into one back pocket of an uncircumcised gay man
from Laguna. A train station with the train's conductor collecting
tickets from a fashion designer with his/her entourage and trunks.
Musical instruments, and the cloth from a torn sail.
I remembered Cythera's story of the lace dress worn by a lady tied to
the railroad tracks by her Landlord. Then of course there is that
decadent Slinkveal, with a gold cloth woven into a braid, (appearing to
come from his neck.)
Dale your poem conjured so many other unique situations that I failed to
wonder about what you had in mind.
I appreciate an intriguing quest, especially when my
own selfish need to explore what I do not know- causes an avalanche.
Thank you,
Upon
Peter J Ross
alt.arts.poetry.comments removed the following benign growth from Dale
Houstman:
> _______________
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress!
> _______________
As usual with your poems, I can think of nothing useful to say about
the details. The fact that I don't enjoy this one as much as I enjoy
some of your others says nothing about how good it is or isn't.
There's certainly nothing obviously wrong or even questionable.
Welcome back. The collective IQ of aapc has just taken a turn for the
better.
PJR :-)
Dale Houstman
<up...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:23767-3CD...@storefull-2335.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> Dale,
> This is rich. You never disappoint, in fact you entice with that
> mischievous grin separating each stanza. Every line realized a familiar
> word within an unfamiliar context or found a fresh awareness disguised
> as a common phrase.
Well, I do work hard!
>
> Reading your manipulation of preconceived notions was an exciting
> experience, one I gladly exchanged for my loss of control. The train of
> thought took me to places even you had not intended.
That's in the nature of impressionism, I gather.
>There were ornate
> dress codes on Navy ships with men polishing and then lacing up their
> shoes, hoping for an honor. I saw a garden with a need for fertilizer. A
> wild flower called Lace, became a tiny maiden who danced upon the window
> of a child's imagination. There was a gold crown placed on a tooth. A
> lace train trailing from a woman's jewelled wedding gown. Bones in a
> corset, or the horn from a Rhino. A particular color of lace hankie
> deliberately tucked into one back pocket of an uncircumcised gay man
> from Laguna. A train station with the train's conductor collecting
> tickets from a fashion designer with his/her entourage and trunks.
> Musical instruments, and the cloth from a torn sail.
>
> I remembered Cythera's story of the lace dress worn by a lady tied to
> the railroad tracks by her Landlord. Then of course there is that
> decadent Slinkveal, with a gold cloth woven into a braid, (appearing to
> come from his neck.)
>
> Dale your poem conjured so many other unique situations that I failed to
> wonder about what you had in mind.
What I had in mind? Mainly impressions revolving about clothing, fabric,
social manners, etc. It seems to have had that desired effect on you at
least.
>
> I appreciate an intriguing quest, especially when my
> own selfish need to explore what I do not know- causes an avalanche.
>
> Thank you,
> Upon
You're welcome.
dmh
>
Dale Houstman
"Peter J Ross" <p...@britishlibrary.net> wrote in message
news:aev8dussoaglb8nr2...@4ax.com...
Oh lord! I'm red as a hand caught in a mangle.
dmh
Peter J Ross
alt.arts.poetry.comments removed the following benign growth from Dale
Houstman:
>
> "Peter J Ross" <p...@britishlibrary.net> wrote in message
> news:aev8dussoaglb8nr2...@4ax.com...
> > On Fri, 3 May 2002 12:05:03 -0500, the surgeons of
> > alt.arts.poetry.comments removed the following benign growth from Dale
> > Houstman:
> >
> > > _______________
> > >
> > > Oh Beautiful Dress!
> > > _______________
> >
> >
> > As usual with your poems, I can think of nothing useful to say about
> > the details. The fact that I don't enjoy this one as much as I enjoy
> > some of your others says nothing about how good it is or isn't.
> > There's certainly nothing obviously wrong or even questionable.
> >
> > Welcome back. The collective IQ of aapc has just taken a turn for the
> > better.
> >
>
> Oh lord! I'm red as a hand caught in a mangle.
I am as manned
as a head
caught in a wrangle,
O Lord my strangle!
PJR :-)
Michael Cook
Nice to read you again. This is way out of my bush league so I'll leave the
criticisms to the critics and just say:
very polished, well done, welcome back.
Michael Cook
"Dale Houstman" <dm...@citilink.com> wrote in message
news:ud5gq6r...@corp.supernews.com...
Dale Houstman
"Michael Cook" <coo...@ameritech.net> wrote in message
news:kr4B8.30697$v92....@atlpnn01.usenetserver.com...
> Dale,
>
> Nice to read you again. This is way out of my bush league so I'll leave
the
> criticisms to the critics and just say:
> very polished, well done, welcome back.
>
> Michael Cook
>
I didn't know that Bush owned a league. I know he owned a baseball team
once, and now he's working at his old man's store, selling bologna as I
remember.
As for "polish," I have found a combination of elbow grease (extracted via a
basting needle), banana oil, and Odie Colognie to be the best.
Thank you for the kind words, etc.
Where's my kangaroo and thermidor?
_______
dmh
The Guy on the Bike
"Dale Houstman" <dm...@citilink.com> wrote in message news:<ud5gq6r...@corp.supernews.com>...
Dale Houstman
"The Guy on the Bike" <theguyo...@email.com> wrote in message
news:17383c8.02050...@posting.google.com...
> Doggerel.
I can only assume from this that you don't know what "doggerel" means
exactly? If you are merely pointing out that it is (in part) comic, then I
won't contradict you. But if (as I assume from your curt and - in itself -
rather rude and crude comment) you are trying to convince me (or yourself or
anybody) that the poem is "rude, crude, or poor") you will have to be more
forthcoming as to your reasons for me to take you seriously. I don't mind in
the least that you or anyone doesn't like my work - I am rather beyond the
point of being "instructed" by those who have no personal stake in the work
beyond a need to be just another nasty voice on Usenet (ho hum). If you DO
have something useful to say concerning your unformed opinion, then please
be so kind as to share it with us. Otherwise, it would be betyter for all
involved that you keep your worthless "spurts" to yourself until they mature
into a less smelly cheese-like substance.
But - attempting bravely to take your ejaculation at face value - the poem
under question isn't really doggerel at all. It is what I would refer to as
"adult nonsense" which is quite a different animal. It is true the
individual lines and images don't necessarily produce a picture of - say -
your bedroom at twilight, or call to mind your favorite Kiss song. But the
poem does add up to a sort of meditation on dress, social position, and
inevitability, amongst other things. The idea of "fabric" is carried
throughout (purposely I assure you), and I do think the poem builds up a
rather creepy energy about the notion of a dress.
Sorry you didn't like it, but - honestly - I would have appreciated a more
meaningful comment from someone who has the intelligence to move his fingers
across a keyboard. Or are you just another "look at me, I'm typing!" twit
with the usual boring agenda of discord and complaint?
Why do I gather you fit the latter?
dmh
ursus major
(It's all I can see, as I *plonk*ed the guy with the bike up his ass the
second time I came across him).
Ursus Major
"Dale Houstman" <dm...@citilink.com> wrote in message
news:udapd42...@corp.supernews.com...
Tiniap
wrote:
>
>"The Guy on the Bike" <theguyo...@email.com> wrote in message
>news:17383c8.02050...@posting.google.com...
>> Doggerel.
Meet the new reincarnation of Chuck, Dale. I plonked it a long time
ago. Didn't realize it was still around.
Andrew
Dale Houstman
"ursus major" <som...@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:UEdB8.359894$f_4....@news.easynews.com...
> I like your response
> (It's all I can see, as I *plonk*ed the guy with the bike up his ass the
> second time I came across him).
>
> Ursus Major
>
remark, but I assume it has to do with a short circuit in the track
lighting, and so am forgiving overall, as one should be kind to those who
are experiencing one sort of stroke or another.
dmh
Dale Houstman
"Tiniap" <Tin...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3cd59888...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
> On Sun, 5 May 2002 12:02:16 -0500, "Dale Houstman" <dm...@citilink.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >"The Guy on the Bike" <theguyo...@email.com> wrote in message
> >news:17383c8.02050...@posting.google.com...
> >> Doggerel.
>
> Meet the new reincarnation of Chuck, Dale. I plonked it a long time
> ago. Didn't realize it was still around.
>
> Andrew
Oh, the dull clod of his tone should have given him away. He's like a slow
midget Hitler. Over in the surrealist group he recently surfaced to say some
stupid and irrelevant thing. I suppose the lack of funds for special
education has left him high and dry, not knowing his ass from his face.
Luckily, this is a disability we can understand, as the distinction isn't
all that great as it turns out.
dmh
The Guy on the Bike
> "The Guy on the Bike" <theguyo...@email.com> wrote in message
> news:17383c8.02050...@posting.google.com...
> > Doggerel.
>
> I can only assume from this that you don't know what "doggerel" means
> exactly?
I know exactly what it means.
If you are merely pointing out that it is (in part) comic, then I
> won't contradict you. But if (as I assume from your curt and - in itself -
> rather rude and crude comment) you are trying to convince me (or yourself or
> anybody) that the poem is "rude, crude, or poor") you will have to be more
> forthcoming as to your reasons for me to take you seriously. I don't mind in
> the least that you or anyone doesn't like my work - I am rather beyond the
> point of being "instructed" by those who have no personal stake in the work
> beyond a need to be just another nasty voice on Usenet (ho hum).
I have no ulterior motive. Your poem is doggerel.
If you DO
> have something useful to say concerning your unformed opinion, then please
> be so kind as to share it with us. Otherwise, it would be betyter for all
> involved that you keep your worthless "spurts" to yourself until they mature
> into a less smelly cheese-like substance.
Your poem is still doggerel.
>
> But - attempting bravely to take your ejaculation at face value - the poem
> under question isn't really doggerel at all. It is what I would refer to as
> "adult nonsense" which is quite a different animal. It is true the
> individual lines and images don't necessarily produce a picture of - say -
> your bedroom at twilight, or call to mind your favorite Kiss song. But the
> poem does add up to a sort of meditation on dress, social position, and
> inevitability, amongst other things. The idea of "fabric" is carried
> throughout (purposely I assure you), and I do think the poem builds up a
> rather creepy energy about the notion of a dress.
>
> Sorry you didn't like it, but - honestly - I would have appreciated a more
> meaningful comment from someone who has the intelligence to move his fingers
> across a keyboard. Or are you just another "look at me, I'm typing!" twit
> with the usual boring agenda of discord and complaint?
>
> Why do I gather you fit the latter?
Because your a malcontent, and an asshole. You always have been.
The Guy on the Bike
"ursus major" <som...@microsoft.com> wrote in message news:<UEdB8.359894$f_4....@news.easynews.com>...
The Guy on the Bike
Tin...@yahoo.com (Tiniap) wrote in message news:<3cd59888...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>...
Basil
> _______________
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress!>
>
>
> but not lace because lace seems far from well.
> We cut lace into hankies for the boys. No, not lace
> but serviceable otter with a few strands of rags.
> And there the deadly harvest of the goldsmith!
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Bonfire of ready money
> watered like a drink in any honest tavern;
> what gets lodged against you gets lodged against you;
> it's either rubies or rhinos
> and then comes the Collector.
>
> There is the business of improvidence
> which arises from the deterioration of fashion
> and is a ventilation of deity.
Dale, these last three lines deflected my attention - it is as though
you have surfaced for air and absent-mindedly written a few lines
before diving back in.
They do not expressed your ideas in the form you have established in
the first two stanzas and the words, "There is", "which arises from"
and "and is" give the sentence the feel of prosaic explanation.
> But not lace because lace seems far from well
> and we fear to leave lace alone in the dark.
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Pearl of murder
> and the scaled fillet like a frost flower
> fringes the husband's jaw with ice
> and her wet glance is a sleeping science
> and then comes the Conductor.
>
> This train is carrying wheeled dress racks
> and all the hands are dreaming of a dress
> in the shape of an anchor,
> and there is a tiny train of slinkveal
> coming up out of the neck.
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Calcium rose
> riding on the train carrying deified fabrics.
> But not lace because lace seems far from well
> decorating the window upon the crime
> it's either rubies or rhinos.
> And then comes the Landlord.
>
> __________
> dmh
It is fascinating how some women would not be seen dead in a style
they raved about the previous year and how a ring loses its beauty
when they find out it is glass and alloy and not diamond set in gold.
(Most are also ignorant, as are most men, of the real dangers to the
environment the extraction of gold presents.)
It is also hard to grasp that the most useless objects and materials
are held to be so valuable. They truly enter the realm of religion and
sit well within a system in which wealth is idolised.
In his intro to "The Picture of Dorian Grey", Wilde asserts that all
art is quite useless. Does art (lace) only escape scorn in the
isolation of an individual's contemplation of it?
Basil.
Dale Houstman
"Basil" <bafa...@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message
news:531c56f8.02050...@posting.google.com...
> "Dale Houstman" <dm...@citilink.com> wrote in message
news:<ud5gq6r...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > _______________
> >
> > >
> > which arises from the deterioration of fashion
> > and is a ventilation of deity."
>
>
>
> Dale, these last three lines deflected my attention - it is as though
> you have surfaced for air and absent-mindedly written a few lines
> before diving back in.
> They do not expressed your ideas in the form you have established in
> the first two stanzas and the words, "There is", "which arises from"
> and "and is" give the sentence the feel of prosaic explanation.
That's the brightest observation yet (infinitely more useful than
"Doggerel"). Thanks.
>
> It is fascinating how some women would not be seen dead in a style
> they raved about the previous year and how a ring loses its beauty
> when they find out it is glass and alloy and not diamond set in gold.
> (Most are also ignorant, as are most men, of the real dangers to the
> environment the extraction of gold presents.)
>
> It is also hard to grasp that the most useless objects and materials
> are held to be so valuable. They truly enter the realm of religion and
> sit well within a system in which wealth is idolised.
>
> In his intro to "The Picture of Dorian Grey", Wilde asserts that all
> art is quite useless. Does art (lace) only escape scorn in the
> isolation of an individual's contemplation of it?
>
> Basil.
One of the reasons I was initially attracted to poetry is that I responded
to its "uselessness" and felt that here - at least - was something I could
do without being second-guessed, since most people rejected it as drivel and
poppycock. It takes an alien to know an alien...
dmh
a
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress!
> _______________
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Window upon the crime & further in time
The rhyme seems out of place, a little too cutsie, no?
> but not lace because lace seems far from well.
> We cut lace into hankies for the boys. No, not lace
> but serviceable otter with a few strands of rags.
> And there the deadly harvest of the goldsmith!
"deadly" ? Why not pick something from your wearhouse of surrealist visual
snippets -
even "black" would suit me better. ("rust"sounds good)
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Bonfire of ready money
> watered like a drink in any honest tavern;
> what gets lodged against you gets lodged against you;
> it's either rubies or rhinos
> and then comes the Collector.
>
> There is the business of improvidence
> which arises from the deterioration of fashion
> and is a ventilation of deity.
Duelling abstractions:) I dig it.
> But not lace because lace seems far from well
> and we fear to leave lace alone in the dark.
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Pearl of murder
> and the scaled fillet like a frost flower
> fringes the husband's jaw with ice
Classic dmh. Yahoo:) (I bet you kept this one in the cellar for more than a
few summers).
> and her wet glance is a sleeping science
Fantstic. Sound, visuals, ideas, rythm it's all here.
> and then comes the Conductor.
>
> This train is carrying wheeled dress racks
> and all the hands are dreaming of a dress
> in the shape of an anchor,
> and there is a tiny train of slinkveal
> coming up out of the neck.
Great stuff.
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Calcium rose
> riding on the train carrying deified fabrics.
> But not lace because lace seems far from well
> decorating the window upon the crime
> it's either rubies or rhinos.
> And then comes the Landlord.
>
> __________
> dmh
"calcium rose" get's the freshoriginal prize
Thanks.
R.F.
Dale Houstman
"a" <a...@b.com> wrote in message
news:lTdH8.94754$t8_....@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
>
> The rhyme seems out of place, a little too cutsie, no?
Maybe, but dresses are cute, no?
>
> > but not lace because lace seems far from well.
> > We cut lace into hankies for the boys. No, not lace
> > but serviceable otter with a few strands of rags.
> > And there the deadly harvest of the goldsmith!
>
> "deadly" ? Why not pick something from your wearhouse of surrealist visual
> snippets -
> even "black" would suit me better. ("rust"sounds good)
That's not bad, but I must say I don't have a warehouse" of surrealist
visual snippets: for good or bad, I compose the pieces at the moment and do
not dig into a "joke catalogue." This bears a revisit though, and I'll keep
your suggestion in mind.
>
> > There is the business of improvidence
> > which arises from the deterioration of fashion
> > and is a ventilation of deity.
>
> Duelling abstractions:) I dig it.
It doesn't hurt to be purposefully vague from time to time, I think.
>
>
> > and the scaled fillet like a frost flower
> > fringes the husband's jaw with ice
>
> Classic dmh. Yahoo:) (I bet you kept this one in the cellar for more than
a
> few summers).
Nope. And "Classic dmh" is only a marketing answer to the failure of "New
dmh."
>
> > and her wet glance is a sleeping science
>
> Fantstic. Sound, visuals, ideas, rythm it's all here.
I liked it.
>
> > and then comes the Conductor.
> >
> > This train is carrying wheeled dress racks
> > and all the hands are dreaming of a dress
> > in the shape of an anchor,
> > and there is a tiny train of slinkveal
> > coming up out of the neck.
>
> Great stuff.
Now "slinkveal" is a sort of standby word. I first came across it in
"Melmoth The Wanderer" and it is as delicious meat dish made from aborted
calf. Yum!
>
> >
> > Oh Beautiful Dress! Calcium rose
> > riding on the train carrying deified fabrics.
> > But not lace because lace seems far from well
> > decorating the window upon the crime
> > it's either rubies or rhinos.
> > And then comes the Landlord.
> >
> > __________
> > dmh
>
>
> "calcium rose" get's the freshoriginal prize
Which is? Warbonds I suppose?
dmh
>
a
first child to be a citizen of every nation on earth - it's yours for the
taking.
R.F.
>
>
Rose Blush
Actually, I was relieved to see his comment up there among all the
uniformly positive ones. Everyone else seemed to be saying, "Duh, gee,
I don't understand a word of it, but I'm too intimidated to suggest
that that might in any way detract from its perfection." The Bike
Guy's comment was perhaps a little too succinct to be really polite,
but your response struck me as needlessly prickly, like something
you'd expect from some class valedictorian who's never been criticized
in his life and one little word can shatter his whole self image.
Maybe you need to spend a few days getting beat up in the vo-tech
school, hon.
Mind you, I say this after wrestling with my own reaction to your poem
and concluding that it is just what you say - nonsense, but nonsense
that somehow adds up to something. It doesn't just sound good when
read aloud, it does paint a picture, albeit an abstract one. It also
seems to me that "merely" having a beautiful sound - the cadence, the
artful repetitions - is worthwhile all by itself. When a jazz singer
scats, it's still music. The artist Stuart Davis once said, "Pure
decoration is what I want," and your poem reminds me a little of one
of his paintings with the sharp angled shapes filled with flat, bright
colors that look like they're dancing all over the canvas.
Not that your nonsense is THAT nonsensical, those analogies are a
little extreme. But I don't think it's right to get all bent out of
shape when readers suggest -- however bluntly -- that they're not
getting your message. Is it so unthinkable that your poem might be
more effective if you helped us out a teensy bit more? There are
degrees of abstraction (I mean that in the "abstract art" sense, not
in the "lack of concreteness" sense). If you're trying to be an
impressionist and your seemingly fragmented brush strokes don't
somehow come together to form a distinct impression, then you need to
work on that - it doesn't necessarily mean your critics are too stupid
to appreciate impressionism. Similarly, if you're trying to be Stuart
Davis and you don't achieve pure decoration, that's your bad. My
verdict, however unqualified, is that your poem SOUNDS delicious,
you're probably a genius, but I'm not sure I'm seeing all the pictures
you want me to see, and while that's undoubtedly at least 75% due to
my being a knucklehead, I'm not convinced that's all there is to it.
Dennis M. Hammes
What she said.
--
------(m+
~/:o)_|
The Moving Cursor writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Blasphemy nor Wit
Shall lure it back to rescue half a Line
When Windows washes every Word of it.
http://t-independent.com/scrawlmark-press/
Dale Houstman
"Rose Blush" <hiddenro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:a95c6a81.02052...@posting.google.com...
You're kidding! It is obvious that I don't mind negative comments, and - in
several cases - I responded with an intent to take their words to heart.
What I dislike - and you seem blind to - is dismissive one-word insults
lacking substance. My response was perfectly fine, but you do seem a bit
prickly.
>
> Mind you, I say this after wrestling with my own reaction to your poem
> and concluding that it is just what you say - nonsense, but nonsense
> that somehow adds up to something.
ALL nonsense adds up to something.
> Not that your nonsense is THAT nonsensical, those analogies are a
> little extreme. But I don't think it's right to get all bent out of
> shape when readers suggest -- however bluntly -- that they're not
> getting your message.
Again - I didn't. To merely say "doggerel" isn't to suggest one isn't
"getting my message" (whatever that might be): it is to suggest he has
gotten it, and he thinks it's crap. This is perfectly fine as a feeling of
course, but his comment remains a pointless one, and it is not because it
was negative but - really - stupid.
>Is it so unthinkable that your poem might be
> more effective if you helped us out a teensy bit more? There are
> degrees of abstraction (I mean that in the "abstract art" sense, not
> in the "lack of concreteness" sense). If you're trying to be an
> impressionist and your seemingly fragmented brush strokes don't
> somehow come together to form a distinct impression, then you need to
> work on that - it doesn't necessarily mean your critics are too stupid
> to appreciate impressionism. Similarly, if you're trying to be Stuart
> Davis and you don't achieve pure decoration, that's your bad.
It's your construction that I am "trying to be Stuart Davis." I hardly have
to come up to your illusions about my work.
>My verdict, however unqualified, is that your poem SOUNDS delicious,
> you're probably a genius, but I'm not sure I'm seeing all the pictures
> you want me to see, and while that's undoubtedly at least 75% due to
> my being a knucklehead, I'm not convinced that's all there is to it.
75% strikes me as sufficient to the need.
dmh
Tom Bishop
Didn't see this was from you till just now.
It seems to follow a formula that you like,
of repeating (with variations) a number of
surreal images (I assume that is the way you
would phrase it).
There doesn't seem to be any message, or
I am not getting it, (if calling me clueless helps, it
certainly doesn't hurt me, so go for it) and the images
aren't powerful enough to carry it.. just gibberish,
lovely gibberish at times, but nothing that makes it
stick in my mind.
That is my polite opinion, and I will refrain
from repetitively sharing it again as long as
you keep to this formula.
I think your poem could be redrafted, replacing
just the nouns or verbs or adjectives or combinations
of them with no real loss of /meaning/, but perhaps
there is more to it. Guess you would have to supply
crib notes.
Your formula for crits and responses to them
I would characterize as intellectually
puffed emotionalism, so I will just reiterate as I did
in the "Mindflight" thread... "You have the last word".
(as long as you follow /that/ formula. If you break out
of it, I am happy to listen/discuss, and possibly even
see more of what you are trying to say with your poems.)
--
Tom Bishop
"Dale Houstman" <dm...@citilink.com> wrote in message news:ud5gq6r...@corp.supernews.com...
> _______________
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress!
> _______________
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Window upon the crime & further in time
> but not lace because lace seems far from well.
> We cut lace into hankies for the boys. No, not lace
> but serviceable otter with a few strands of rags.
> And there the deadly harvest of the goldsmith!
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Bonfire of ready money
> watered like a drink in any honest tavern;
> what gets lodged against you gets lodged against you;
> it's either rubies or rhinos
> and then comes the Collector.
>
> There is the business of improvidence
> which arises from the deterioration of fashion
> and is a ventilation of deity.
> But not lace because lace seems far from well
> and we fear to leave lace alone in the dark.
>
> Oh Beautiful Dress! Pearl of murder
> and the scaled fillet like a frost flower
> fringes the husband's jaw with ice
> and her wet glance is a sleeping science
> and then comes the Conductor.
>
> This train is carrying wheeled dress racks
> and all the hands are dreaming of a dress
> in the shape of an anchor,
> and there is a tiny train of slinkveal
> coming up out of the neck.
>
Dale Houstman
"Tom Bishop" <t...@truly.nu> wrote in message
news:6c6I8.755$wn3.77...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
> Hi Dale,
>
> Didn't see this was from you till just now.
>
> It seems to follow a formula that you like,
> of repeating (with variations) a number of
> surreal images (I assume that is the way you
> would phrase it).
>
> There doesn't seem to be any message, or
> I am not getting it, (if calling me clueless helps, it
> certainly doesn't hurt me, so go for it) and the images
> aren't powerful enough to carry it.. just gibberish,
> lovely gibberish at times, but nothing that makes it
> stick in my mind.
>
> That is my polite opinion, and I will refrain
> from repetitively sharing it again as long as
> you keep to this formula.
It IS polite, and I appreciate your comments. I REALLY don't have a formula
(or I have many different ones), and this poem is repetitious, like a few
others in which I have explored that aspect of poetry. But it is hardly all
I do. As for it having a "message" (something I am not overly interested in
anyway), I think it is obviously about several different aspects of
fashion/uniform/physical seduction, and so on, which happen at the expense
(sometimes) of other maybe more important and dangerous facets of life,
which trudge onward despite our ignoring them.
>
> I think your poem could be redrafted, replacing
> just the nouns or verbs or adjectives or combinations
> of them with no real loss of /meaning/, but perhaps
> there is more to it. Guess you would have to supply
> crib notes.
I simply think you're wrong here. The portions of the poem relate to each
other through the metaphors of dress, fabric, uniforms, disguise, etc. Of
course, anything can be improved, but the poem as is does not exhibit the
arbitrariness you seem to see in it. As for "crib notes" there is nothing in
the poem beyond the ken of a bright ten-year-old, and - honestly - I put
your response down to as lack of imagination and the usual "poetry is a
somber business" attitude that ruins so much modern poetry.
>
> Your formula for crits and responses to them
> I would characterize as intellectually
> puffed emotionalism, so I will just reiterate as I did
> in the "Mindflight" thread... "You have the last word".
> (as long as you follow /that/ formula. If you break out
> of it, I am happy to listen/discuss, and possibly even
> see more of what you are trying to say with your poems.)
You keep trying to hang this word "formula" on me, but it simply doesn't
apply. I am not about to go into my manner of writing, but I can assure you
it does not involve formulas beyond the usual personal preferences we all
hold dear to. Your characterization is based on a very thin slice of
evidence I would say. It just so happens that I usually respond to criticism
politely, and only abhor the
obvious-to-anyone-without-their-heads-up-their-asses aggressive agendas of
the ones who have nothing to say and say it as loudly as possible. Other
than that, I vividly and frequently state my appreciation for a reader's
time and effort to comprehend, despite their rejection. All in all, at 51, I
have little need of or desire for support or lambasting, and try to rather
judge the quality of the mind behind the comments. Thus, my response to such
deep thoughts as "doggerl" is that it is sorely lacking in thought and
consideration. This is hardly umbrage at being disliked, but a desire to
know the particulars of that judgement, which - after all - is the basis of
conversation and progress. I seldom dismiss even the worst poetry without
sounding off - at length - about the why of my consideration. I am sorry you
don't appreciate this, but - frankly - so what?
And I would rather see a poem repeat beauty than simply bowl forward in
banal shallows. This is a personal preference. But repetition is an
essential ingedient of poetry (and music) and reveals itself in rhymes,
meters, and metaphors. If I sometimes choose to bring this aspect of poetry
to the forefront it is for a reason. That you do not like it much is fine.
But I am quite aware of its presence in the work, I don't always do it, and
when I do it's for a purpose.
dmh
>
Tom Bishop
>
> "Tom Bishop" <t...@truly.nu> wrote in message
> news:6c6I8.755$wn3.77...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
> > Hi Dale,
> >
> > Didn't see this was from you till just now.
> >
> > It seems to follow a formula that you like,
> > of repeating (with variations) a number of
> > surreal images (I assume that is the way you
> > would phrase it).
> >
> > There doesn't seem to be any message, or
> > I am not getting it, (if calling me clueless helps, it
> > certainly doesn't hurt me, so go for it) and the images
> > aren't powerful enough to carry it.. just gibberish,
> > lovely gibberish at times, but nothing that makes it
> > stick in my mind.
> >
> > That is my polite opinion, and I will refrain
> > from repetitively sharing it again as long as
> > you keep to this formula.
>
> It IS polite, and I appreciate your comments. I REALLY don't have a formula
> (or I have many different ones), and this poem is repetitious, like a few
> others in which I have explored that aspect of poetry.
I read 3, and they all showed this..
(repetition, surreal images, no message that I got)
..not a large sample, will look for more/different.
> But it is hardly all
> I do. As for it having a "message" (something I am not overly interested in
> anyway), I think it is obviously about several different aspects of
> fashion/uniform/physical seduction, and so on, which happen at the expense
> (sometimes) of other maybe more important and dangerous facets of life,
> which trudge onward despite our ignoring them.
Too many /messages/ (IMO) to convey strongly enough to leave
an impression in my mind other than disparate images. Too diffuse, not
to the point (opinion). But you make me think more about it.
> > I think your poem could be redrafted, replacing
> > just the nouns or verbs or adjectives or combinations
> > of them with no real loss of /meaning/, but perhaps
> > there is more to it. Guess you would have to supply
> > crib notes.
>
> I simply think you're wrong here. The portions of the poem relate to each
> other through the metaphors of dress, fabric, uniforms, disguise, etc. Of
> course, anything can be improved, but the poem as is does not exhibit the
> arbitrariness you seem to see in it. As for "crib notes" there is nothing in
> the poem beyond the ken of a bright ten-year-old, and - honestly - I put
> your response down to as lack of imagination and the usual "poetry is a
> somber business" attitude that ruins so much modern poetry.
I was talking about your poetry, you are talking about me. No biggie,
I'm a big (enough) boy at 49 that I ain't "terribly hurt", but why
take it personal at the drop of a hat. Even you say I am being polite.
I hardly lack imagination, and could hardly be considered somber,
though perhaps some of my poems could be accused of that.
Impetuous, foolish, crazy, sadistic, masochistic, playful etc..
..but no lack of imagination ever, and only somber when
bored and depressed.
> > Your formula for crits and responses to them
> > I would characterize as intellectually
> > puffed emotionalism, so I will just reiterate as I did
> > in the "Mindflight" thread... "You have the last word".
> > (as long as you follow /that/ formula. If you break out
> > of it, I am happy to listen/discuss, and possibly even
> > see more of what you are trying to say with your poems.)
>
> You keep trying to hang this word "formula" on me, but it simply doesn't
> apply. I am not about to go into my manner of writing, but I can assure you
> it does not involve formulas beyond the usual personal preferences we all
> hold dear to. Your characterization is based on a very thin slice of
> evidence I would say. It just so happens that I usually respond to criticism
> politely, and only abhor the
> obvious-to-anyone-without-their-heads-up-their-asses aggressive agendas of
> the ones who have nothing to say and say it as loudly as possible. Other
> than that, I vividly and frequently state my appreciation for a reader's
> time and effort to comprehend, despite their rejection. All in all, at 51, I
> have little need of or desire for support or lambasting, and try to rather
> judge the quality of the mind behind the comments. Thus, my response to such
> deep thoughts as "doggerl" is that it is sorely lacking in thought and
I thought that doggerel /was/ exactly words in poetic form
that has no real message. (I am new.. this may be totally cracked).
You say that it has several messages, which I contend amounts
to saying it has none, since it is not focused enough to communicate
even one message. In your case, it is lovely in a way that one expects
there to be a message, but look, and I cannot find.
> consideration. This is hardly umbrage at being disliked, but a desire to
> know the particulars of that judgement, which - after all - is the basis of
> conversation and progress. I seldom dismiss even the worst poetry without
> sounding off - at length - about the why of my consideration. I am sorry you
> don't appreciate this, but - frankly - so what?
It is very difficult conversing with someone who devolves to "so what"
(for /any/ reason). It tends to stop communication, and will.
I think intelligent people understand the - so what - of it all well enough
to push beyond it.
> And I would rather see a poem repeat beauty than simply bowl forward in
> banal shallows. This is a personal preference. But repetition is an
> essential ingedient of poetry (and music) and reveals itself in rhymes,
> meters, and metaphors.
Yes, but the repetition is precisely for the emphasis and support
of /the message/.. My opinion.. And since I have only had /any/
interest in poetry for a few months that is evolving rapidly.
But... If you say "so what" to this, I will devolve to
"you have the last word", which I would prefer to avoid.
I know you don't care that much, I know you are bright,
perhaps brilliant. Guess I am asking for more.
> If I sometimes choose to bring this aspect of poetry
> to the forefront it is for a reason. That you do not like it much is fine.
> But I am quite aware of its presence in the work, I don't always do it, and
> when I do it's for a purpose.
Understand.
>
> dmh
> >
>
>
>
Aidan Tynan
>
>Yes, but the repetition is precisely for the emphasis and support
>of /the message/.. My opinion..
I feel your opinion is inaccurate. I can't speak for its instantiation in
any particular poem, but repetition (or parallelism) in poetry generally
deals with building up substantive tonal echoes, establishing a sort of
emotional cadence, and not a way of driving home a message. Anaphoric
repetition (of sound, syllable, word, phrase, line, stanza, grammatical or
metrical pattern) are the basic unifying devices of all poetry, and probably
all art. When you say 'message' I can only assume you refer to a sort of
meaning extrapolated and abstracted from the words of the poem, but this is
another ill-informed judgement on your part, I feel, since 'the poem said
any other way is not the poem' (Charles Bernstein). Also, your idea that
several messages amount to none 'since it is not focused enough to
communicate' is dubious, since semantic ambiguity (see Empson) is one of the
defining characteristics of poetry. In fact, poetry has little to do with
'communication' at all. It's a common misconception, though, that there is
necessarily a meaning 'beyond' the words -- there may be, who knows? but
it's hardly a prerequisite for comprehension.
-Aidan
Tom Bishop
>
>
> >
> >Yes, but the repetition is precisely for the emphasis and support
> >of /the message/.. My opinion..
Hi Aidan,
Appreciate this perspective, and truly want to understand as much
as possible, but not sure that I can get my brain totally around it.
Please excuse, and perhaps assist my /writhing as I try/.
> I feel your opinion is inaccurate.
Easily believable.
> I can't speak for its instantiation in
> any particular poem, but repetition (or parallelism) in poetry generally
> deals with building up substantive tonal echoes, establishing a sort of
> emotional cadence, and not a way of driving home a message.
Then (assuming there is a message) how is it conveyed?
> Anaphoric
> repetition (of sound, syllable, word, phrase, line, stanza, grammatical or
> metrical pattern) are the basic unifying devices of all poetry, and probably
> all art. When you say 'message' I can only assume you refer to a sort of
> meaning extrapolated and abstracted from the words of the poem, but this is
> another ill-informed judgement on your part, I feel, since 'the poem said
> any other way is not the poem' (Charles Bernstein).
Well it seems that when an author writes a poem, prima facia, they are
"saying something", "communicating something".. from the images/feelings
in their mind, thru words, to form images/feelings in the readers mind.
Clearly the images that the reader gets are not exact replicas of the
image in the author's mind (nor does it make sense for the author to
attempt to demand such), but at least I as a reader, am attempting
to figure out /what the author is trying to say/.. along with general
enjoyment of rythms (repetition), but given the conciseness.
> Also, your idea that
> several messages amount to none 'since it is not focused enough to
> communicate' is dubious, since semantic ambiguity (see Empson) is one of the
> defining characteristics of poetry.
I agree, and hope I can move towards this ambiguity..
Since /that/ is what widens the communication to encompass a larger
audience, since each reader's mind /moves in multiple directions/
in order to /compute/ the meaning of the communication.
Semantic ambiguity assumes there is a semantic to be ambiguated, no?.
> In fact, poetry has little to do with
> 'communication' at all.
..but that is the only purpose of words.
Sounds (represented by written glyphs, /invented/ exactly for the
/communication/ of ideas/images..
See Hammes: http://www.t-independent.com/scrawlmark-press/proso.html
Quote:
A poem is, before it is anything else, an act of
communication. As such, it is subject to cybernetic rules,
ignored at your own peril: the time you wasted on what
might have been a communication, and could have been a
good one. It does not admit of random grammar, random
syntax, or random juxtaposition of events to see what
they produce (you're supposed to do that by thinking,
and to idendify what they have done before you begin to
write).
A communication in a human tongue is a series of
sounds made with the voice. Poetry is a communication
that has organised these sounds with perhaps as much
attention as it gives their meanings.
To this end, a poem is a communication that /makes
use of/ the line. It is not a prose communication or
incommunication hacked at random into short segments.
If you cut up a string of drool with scissors, it's not
only still drool, but mere proximity of the pieces causes
them to flow back together. And while this is extended
metaphor, it is not poetry.
The line in poetry is delineated in itself and
referred to other lines to create /more-or-less-regular
periods/, not found in prose, by a particular use of
sounds.
<>
In poetry, sound establishes and enhances the line
(not the converse). The line, theoretically of any length,
even to that 87-page sentence of Joyce's, is found in
English to establish a period that /feels good/ with
three-, but especially four- and five-beat lines, seldom
six, with seven broken into four-three, and with little
departure from these. They carry as much sense as the
average reader can sing, or digest in one byte, while
providing the bricks of larger structures -- and that is
what it is all about: communication.
---------
This is not dealing directly with repetition in support of
message, but ALL is message/communication. Least that
is what I understand. If I am too far off in referencing this
quote, then Dennis will probably be around.
[NOT that I consider Dennis the gawd of poetry,
but he is worthy of respect, and has mine.]
> It's a common misconception, though, that there is
> necessarily a meaning 'beyond' the words -- there may be, who knows? but
> it's hardly a prerequisite for comprehension.
If there is no message, or multiple unfocused messages,
then what can be comprehended? It seems there are fundamental
problems with this logic.. but I am open to learn!
Dale Houstman
> >of /the message/.. My opinion..
>
> I feel your opinion is inaccurate. I can't speak for its instantiation in
> any particular poem, but repetition (or parallelism) in poetry generally
> deals with building up substantive tonal echoes, establishing a sort of
> emotional cadence, and not a way of driving home a message. Anaphoric
> repetition (of sound, syllable, word, phrase, line, stanza, grammatical or
> metrical pattern) are the basic unifying devices of all poetry, and
probably
> all art. When you say 'message' I can only assume you refer to a sort of
> meaning extrapolated and abstracted from the words of the poem, but this
is
> another ill-informed judgement on your part, I feel, since 'the poem said
> any other way is not the poem' (Charles Bernstein).
>Also, your idea that several messages amount to none 'since it is not
focused enough to
> communicate' is dubious, since semantic ambiguity (see Empson) is one of
the
> defining characteristics of poetry. In fact, poetry has little to do with
> 'communication' at all. It's a common misconception, though, that there is
> necessarily a meaning 'beyond' the words -- there may be, who knows? but
> it's hardly a prerequisite for comprehension.
>
>
Well said.
dmh
M.H.Benders
Aidan Tynan wrote:
> In fact, poetry has little to do with
> 'communication' at all. It's a common misconception, though, that there is
> necessarily a meaning 'beyond' the words -- there may be, who knows? but
> it's hardly a prerequisite for comprehension.
I strongly disagree with any philosophies that tend to make poems look like word
puzzles. Even the most sloppy kind of observer would agree that a painter does
more than just puzzle with paint until it 'looks good'. In fact, communication
*is* the essence of all art, and while a 'message' is a somewhat primitive form
of meaning, it is the clarity of meaning, whether tonal or conceptual, that
often makes a poem great. It is also quite obvious to me that a poem is always
more than just the sum of its components. To eradicate the invisible world of
the unsaid in order to promote some postmodern populist mechanical world view
seems rather banal and completely unnecessary.
M.H.Benders
Dale Houstman
"M.H.Benders" <maan...@chello.nl> wrote in message
news:3CF1498F...@chello.nl...
I think there remains a huge distance between the simplistic notion of
"messages" and "the invisible world of the unsaid." In fact, I would
conjecture that simple "messages" do more damage to poetry than any
wordplay. And - personally - I'm no postmodernist: I firmly believe that
there is something to be revealed and that there are things worth saying. I
just don't happen to believe that hammering obviousness is particularly
effective in revealing the marvelous nature of language or of human
experience. It rather cheapens it. But - yet - many artists do indeed play
with their medium until something strikes them as worthwhile. Play is
essential to the creative process, and it often arises from only
half-understood processes. Beginning with a "message" usually short circuits
the interplay between potential and the rather "labyrinthic" ways people
arrive "home." From personal experience and from observation of others, I
can tell you that poems and other genres often go through a dark wood of the
ineffable before settling into refinement and retooling. The poem should be
as much an adventure into the unknown for the writer as it might be for the
reader, and "messages" are often the things of the merely pedantic. I would
agree that poetry "communicates" but what it communicates and how it
communicates are things of endless variation, and if the poet is too firmly
in control of their "meaning" too soon, much can be lost.
dmh
M.H.Benders
Dale Houstman wrote:
>
> I think there remains a huge distance between the simplistic notion of
> "messages" and "the invisible world of the unsaid."
That's untrue. The messages always come from the invisible world of the unsaid.
> In fact, I would
> conjecture that simple "messages" do more damage to poetry than any
> wordplay.
I don't think so. You're confusing 'messages' with plots. Poems are like movies
without actors. In hollywood cheap plots are often guised by a few good actors
and a box of special effects. I've seen some fairly brilliant movies which had a
really bad plot but superb actors or special effects. A bad plot, however, says
nothing about the messages that could be hidden within a movie or a poem.
There's a lot of awkward music that seems quite prophetic - and for that matter,
there's no such thing as a 'bad message' while there are plenty of bad plots
floating about in the world.
M.H.Benders
Tom Bishop
I wonder if you allow that there is anything about poetry that you don't know.
You speak as if there is /no/ other correct view possible for intelligent
people.. but your own.. and and what you posit doesn't smack of logic.
(hey, I am a programmer so logic is an issue for me)
I ask this seriously, are their any holes in your knowledge, or do
you really know everything. If not, then why not allow that someone
might know something that you don't, or see the world differently
than you, placing value of different things.
> I just don't happen to believe that hammering obviousness is particularly
> effective in revealing the marvelous nature of language
..don't see this.. language is what poetry is formed from.
Not poetry's job to reveal it's nature, it is the medium,
the canvas and paint (to me.. and I am not all-knowing, and just
here for discussion).
> or of human
> experience. It rather cheapens it.
It seems that a poem could/should have multiple levels to be
generally appealing. Something for the "intellectuals" to unravel,
and something for more mundane types (which comprise most of
the population if one is to take bell shaped curves seriously).
> But - yet - many artists do indeed play
> with their medium until something strikes them as worthwhile. Play is
> essential to the creative process, and it often arises from only
> half-understood processes. Beginning with a "message" usually short circuits
> the interplay between potential and the rather "labyrinthic" ways people
> arrive "home." From personal experience and from observation of others, I
> can tell you that poems and other genres often go through a dark wood of the
> ineffable before settling into refinement and retooling. The poem should be
> as much an adventure into the unknown for the writer as it might be for the
> reader, and "messages" are often the things of the merely pedantic. I would
> agree that poetry "communicates" but what it communicates and how it
> communicates are things of endless variation,
Clearly so.. and crafting semantic ambiguity into a poem is /a way/ that
the poet can communicate. Most won't, but then /most/ people hit the
bell curve around the 100 mark. I (as I conjure it now) want to ride
a line between concreteness and ambiguity that appeals to a larger
audience that either totally concrete, which bores the smart kids,
and the wildly (surreal) ambiguous, which simply confuses all but
the smart kids.
I am listening to you, hoping you can help me move away from
concreteness, but at the same time, I am not interested in losing it
completely.
> and if the poet is too firmly
> in control of their "meaning" too soon, much can be lost.
Well it seems that the poet's control is not the problem, but only how they
use it.. but at least you have (somewhat) changed your mind about poetry
as communication, which shows some flexibility.
>
> dmh
Tom Bishop
Joshua P. Hill
<dm...@citilink.com> wrote:
>I can tell you that poems and other genres often go through a dark wood of the
>ineffable
Wow, that's good.
Josh
Aidan Tynan
>Well it seems that when an author writes a poem, prima facia, they are
>"saying something", "communicating something".. from the images/feelings
>in their mind, thru words, to form images/feelings in the readers mind.
>
>Clearly the images that the reader gets are not exact replicas of the
>image in the author's mind (nor does it make sense for the author to
>attempt to demand such), but at least I as a reader, am attempting
>to figure out /what the author is trying to say/.. along with general
>enjoyment of rythms (repetition), but given the conciseness.
I usually factor out the author to a great degree (or to whatever degree is
valuable/necessary) while reading. As such, I'm not really interested in
what the author is trying to say, but what the poem is saying and how.
>..but that is the only purpose of words.
I'd have to disagree; the Russian formalists saw literature as foregrounding
the word, bringing it away from its position as signifier, a carrier of
prepackaged meaning, to the point where it started to take on an autonomous
life of its own inside the text. The play of signifiers (the word-things
which constitute the world), then, generates the meaning, and not the static
relations between the language on the page and the objects of reality (the
latter traditionally being given authority). I don't want to sound too much
like a post-structuralist textbook, but I find the idea of language being
liberated from the circular 'game' of communication the most important and
liberating aspect of poetry. Of course, you can call this communication if
you want (pure sound and colour communicate), but it's a different kind of
communication entirely to what we're used to with language.
-Aidan
Tom Bishop
But might make a good pome.
--
Tom Bishop
"Joshua P. Hill" <josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote in message news:34u2fugmc2d7h7o0b...@4ax.com...
Basil
>
> Didn't see this was from you till just now.
>
> It seems to follow a formula that you like,
> of repeating (with variations) a number of
> surreal images (I assume that is the way you
> would phrase it).
>
> There doesn't seem to be any message, or
> I am not getting it, (if calling me clueless helps, it
> certainly doesn't hurt me, so go for it) and the images
> aren't powerful enough to carry it.. just gibberish,
> lovely gibberish at times, but nothing that makes it
> stick in my mind.
Tom, it is interesting you should say those things about this
particular poem because I find a reasonably coherent theme running
through it. With Dale's method of writing there are going to be times
when political or philosophical
considerations come to colour what he writes, giving the reader, who
picks up on this, a better chance of comprehending his imagery. (in
the same way I can sometimes make sense of a dream, whilst other
dreams remain a jumble of inexplicable visual metaphors)
Like you, I prefer poems that hold some sort of meaning for me, but
this does not negate the kind of poetry Dale produces. It is a matter
of getting out of Dale's poems what has meaning for you, and meaning
is not just a matter of semantics.
Basil
Dale Houstman
"Joshua P. Hill" <josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote in message
news:34u2fugmc2d7h7o0b...@4ax.com...
dmh
Dale Houstman
>
>
> Dale Houstman wrote:
>
> >
> > I think there remains a huge distance between the simplistic notion of
> > "messages" and "the invisible world of the unsaid."
>
> That's untrue. The messages always come from the invisible world of the
unsaid.
Oh come now: the "message" of (say) Jeanne's poem is not even near the
suburbs of the invisible. It is simply another tired (and sentimental) bit
of propaganda, and - as such - resides permanently in the small tanktown of
TotallyObvious. It trades on cheap guilt and fails at every turn to see
itself as a work of art rather than as a pamphlet.
>
>
> > In fact, I would
> > conjecture that simple "messages" do more damage to poetry than any
> > wordplay.
>
> I don't think so. You're confusing 'messages' with plots. Poems are like
movies
> without actors. In hollywood cheap plots are often guised by a few good
actors
> and a box of special effects. I've seen some fairly brilliant movies which
had a
> really bad plot but superb actors or special effects. A bad plot, however,
says
> nothing about the messages that could be hidden within a movie or a poem.
> There's a lot of awkward music that seems quite prophetic - and for that
matter,
> there's no such thing as a 'bad message' while there are plenty of bad
plots
> floating about in the world.
There may or not be such a thing as a "bad" message, but that implies that
there's no such thing as a "good" one either. Who's talking "good" or "bad"
here anyway? It is obvious though that there are manipulative, sentimental,
shallow, too obvious, cliche and so on messages. And - in art - any or all
of these can be destructive to the poetry of the poetry, reducing what
should be marvelous to the merely useful. There are - after one ditches the
dubious dichtomy of "good/bad" messages that are simply ineffective.
dmh
Dale Houstman
You're very liberal. This entire debate revolves around several
misunderstandings, primary amongst which is the idea that I am "defending"
my poem. I merely am trying to stir up a reasonably intelligent discussion
about meaning and intent and ambiguity, etc. Most of the quibbling seems to
stem from a rather anemic notion of the possibilities of poetry: beyond its
technical processes and its "earnest expression" of tired beliefs. It's
simply a lack of imagination on some people's parts only made worse by their
own dismay over my discussion of their poetry, which - as it turned out -
they were less-than-able to defend or even understand and who - as per
usual - took it all personally. Tom may or may not really "get" what I am
attempting to do in my poetry, but it is the lack-of-quality in his
responses that concerns me more than the pros and cons. He goes on at
greater length, but his lack of imagination renders his statements no more
cogent than the "doggerel" pronounced earlier by an equally dense
participant. This isn't surprising to me: the vast majority of people in
general are less than mediocre, and that goes for writers also. Why
shouldn't it? After returning to this group after a long vacation, I find it
even less of an arena for poetry, filled as it is with seemingly endless
clones of "Chuck" and new people who are unable to discern the difference
between intelligent commentary (pro or con) and mere empty flattery. As for
the poetry itself, most of it is the common tripe one sees everywhere in
high school yearbooks and girl's magazines, overly concerned with rather
overripe and shallow depictions of "broken hearts" or dryly cobbled together
with bits and pieces of earnestly studied poetry manuals, and almost none of
it in the least aware of what has happened to poetry since WWII. Even the
stuff happily bereft of the awful "thines" and "orbs" seems dated by a
stiff-necked approach to what the writer (I suppose) conceives "reality" to
be; pedantic and somber and overbearingly conventional for the most part. I
didn't expect MUCH more, only a little, and even that expectation has been
disappointed. If a poem takes more than five minutes to give up all its
"secrets" the PlayStation generation (and a few of their bookwormy fathers
and mothers) turn away in dismay, looking for easier pastimes. They don't
even recognize that much of what I do (well or otherwise) is also as old as
the hills, older than English prosody and often more akin to fire lit chants
and mad ritualistic yawping. The tea-cozy minds of this lot are stifling
and - frankly - in a rapidly fading cul-de-sac of dutiful poetics. One hears
the voices on public radio everyday, slowly pouring out their rotting
rhythms full of "political correctness" or "heart-felt liberal guilt." It's
pathetic. On the other hand there are those who think they are Jack
Kerouoac, only they are being driven up a dead-end in a station wagon, their
eyes full of half-baked groceries.
To hell with it!
dmh
Tom Bishop
--
Tom Bishop
"Dale Houstman" <dm...@citilink.com> wrote in message news:uf3bkc8...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> "Basil" <bafa...@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:531c56f8.02052...@posting.google.com...
> > "Tom Bishop" <t...@truly.nu> wrote in message
> news:<6c6I8.755$wn3.77...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>...
> > > Hi Dale,
> > >
> > > Didn't see this was from you till just now.
> > >
> > > It seems to follow a formula that you like,
> > > of repeating (with variations) a number of
> > > surreal images (I assume that is the way you
> > > would phrase it).
> > >
> > > There doesn't seem to be any message, or
> > > I am not getting it, (if calling me clueless helps, it
> > > certainly doesn't hurt me, so go for it) and the images
> > > aren't powerful enough to carry it.. just gibberish,
> > > lovely gibberish at times, but nothing that makes it
> > > stick in my mind.
> >
> > Tom, it is interesting you should say those things about this
> > particular poem because I find a reasonably coherent theme running
> > through it. With Dale's method of writing there are going to be times
> > when political or philosophical
> > considerations come to colour what he writes, giving the reader, who
> > picks up on this, a better chance of comprehending his imagery. (in
> > the same way I can sometimes make sense of a dream, whilst other
> > dreams remain a jumble of inexplicable visual metaphors)
Enjoy.. I am not getting in anyone's way.
> > Like you, I prefer poems that hold some sort of meaning for me, but
> > this does not negate the kind of poetry Dale produces. It is a matter
> > of getting out of Dale's poems what has meaning for you, and meaning
> > is not just a matter of semantics.
When I read your poem ..Real Thing, I will be able to remember
it, and in my mind it is hung from the message you were communicating.
Not terribly moving, or clever, but I will remember. This (fading)
image/message will remain in my mind for some time. It /communicated/
to me.
I can't even remember Dale's now. I assume, (but am perhaps wrong)
that this is because I got nothing from Dale's, and did not feel that
he had anything to say. No message.
Dale:
> You're very liberal. This entire debate revolves around several
> misunderstandings, primary amongst which is the idea that I am "defending"
> my poem. I merely am trying to stir up a reasonably intelligent discussion
> about meaning and intent and ambiguity, etc. Most of the quibbling seems to
> stem from a rather anemic notion of the possibilities of poetry: beyond its
> technical processes and its "earnest expression" of tired beliefs.
You don't get to write history, except in your own mind.
> It's
> simply a lack of imagination on some people's parts only made worse by their
> own dismay over my discussion of their poetry, which - as it turned out -
> they were less-than-able to defend or even understand and who - as per
> usual - took it all personally.
I have gotten quite positive feedback on Mindflight.. better than it deserves.
As a matter of fact I agree with you in most degrees, except in the way you
express yourself, which you should have left in the sandbox in pre-school.
Your discussion of Mindflight was packed with viperousness that was totally
undeserved by the word pile, and your comments about me were rude. But I
invite you to examine (and shred if you wish) my last works, which I feel
are better, but you have so far declined. Of course your choice.
> Tom may or may not really "get" what I am
> attempting to do in my poetry, but it is the lack-of-quality in his
> responses that concerns me more than the pros and cons. He goes on at
> greater length, but his lack of imagination renders his statements no more
> cogent than the "doggerel" pronounced earlier by an equally dense
> participant.
If you can clarify doggerel definition, and how your poem doesn't
satisfy it I would be happy to read. I understand it to be such.
Albeit with some pretty lines, that I completely fail to remember
(as I say) even now only a few hours after reading it.
> This isn't surprising to me: the vast majority of people in
> general are less than mediocre, and that goes for writers also. Why
> shouldn't it? After returning to this group after a long vacation, I find it
> even less of an arena for poetry, filled as it is with seemingly endless
> clones of "Chuck" and new people who are unable to discern the difference
> between intelligent commentary (pro or con) and mere empty flattery. As for
> the poetry itself, most of it is the common tripe one sees everywhere in
> high school yearbooks and girl's magazines, overly concerned with rather
> overripe and shallow depictions of "broken hearts" or dryly cobbled together
> with bits and pieces of earnestly studied poetry manuals, and almost none of
> it in the least aware of what has happened to poetry since WWII. Even the
> stuff happily bereft of the awful "thines" and "orbs" seems dated by a
Basil had orbs also, but slightly different.. ;-)
> stiff-necked approach to what the writer (I suppose) conceives "reality" to
> be; pedantic and somber and overbearingly conventional for the most part. I
> didn't expect MUCH more, only a little, and even that expectation has been
> disappointed. If a poem takes more than five minutes to give up all its
> "secrets" the PlayStation generation (and a few of their bookwormy fathers
> and mothers) turn away in dismay, looking for easier pastimes. They don't
> even recognize that much of what I do (well or otherwise) is also as old as
> the hills, older than English prosody and often more akin to fire lit chants
> and mad ritualistic yawping.
Poor misunderstood fella.. did Dylan Thomas piss and moan like you,
Lord Byron, Longfellow??? ..are you in good company with your
teary eyed moan-fest.
Get over it and be effective. ..or go on like this and I will killfile you,
since you are as driveling as they come.
..and even so, I freely invite you to shred my poetry although
as I said, until you /change your formula/ I won't comment on
yours since you should know well enough how I feel.
> The tea-cozy minds of this lot are stifling
> and - frankly - in a rapidly fading cul-de-sac of dutiful poetics. One hears
> the voices on public radio everyday, slowly pouring out their rotting
> rhythms full of "political correctness" or "heart-felt liberal guilt." It's
> pathetic. On the other hand there are those who think they are Jack
> Kerouoac, only they are being driven up a dead-end in a station wagon, their
> eyes full of half-baked groceries.
>
> To hell with it!
>
> dmh
You need to up the meds!
Tom Bishop
Tom Bishop
>
>
> >Well it seems that when an author writes a poem, prima facia, they are
> >"saying something", "communicating something".. from the images/feelings
> >in their mind, thru words, to form images/feelings in the readers mind.
> >
> >Clearly the images that the reader gets are not exact replicas of the
> >image in the author's mind (nor does it make sense for the author to
> >attempt to demand such), but at least I as a reader, am attempting
> >to figure out /what the author is trying to say/.. along with general
> >enjoyment of rythms (repetition), but given the conciseness.
>
> I usually factor out the author to a great degree (or to whatever degree is
> valuable/necessary) while reading. As such, I'm not really interested in
> what the author is trying to say, but what the poem is saying and how.
This makes no sense.. are you attempting surrealism here?
The poem is simply a stack of words, it doesn't say anything,
it is lifeless, and never had a mouth. Anthropromorphizing a poem
makes no logical sense.
The consciousness that stacked the words is the one saying something.
> >..but that is the only purpose of words.
>
> I'd have to disagree;
People like to do that, even when they don't..
> the Russian formalists saw literature as foregrounding
> the word, bringing it away from its position as signifier, a carrier of
> prepackaged meaning, to the point where it started to take on an autonomous
> life of its own inside the text.
Yeah, and then there is the easter bunny, and the tooth fairy and
of course spirituality and religion. (see above.)
> The play of signifiers (the word-things
> which constitute the world), then, generates the meaning, and not the static
> relations between the language on the page and the objects of reality (the
> latter traditionally being given authority). I don't want to sound too much
> like a post-structuralist textbook, but I find the idea of language being
> liberated from the circular 'game' of communication the most important and
> liberating aspect of poetry. Of course, you can call this communication if
> you want (pure sound and colour communicate), but it's a different kind of
> communication entirely to what we're used to with language.
>
>
> -Aidan
--
Tom Bishop
M.H.Benders
Dale Houstman wrote:
>
> > > I think there remains a huge distance between the simplistic notion of
> > > "messages" and "the invisible world of the unsaid."
> >
> > That's untrue. The messages always come from the invisible world of the
> unsaid.
>
> Oh come now: the "message" of (say) Jeanne's poem is not even near the
> suburbs of the invisible.
Again, I strongly advise you to use the word 'plot' instead of 'message'. I
could extract a thousand 'messages' out of anyone's poem, but a plot is clearly
something which was intended as such by the author.
> It is simply another tired (and sentimental) bit
> of propaganda, and - as such - resides permanently in the small tanktown of
> TotallyObvious. It trades on cheap guilt and fails at every turn to see
> itself as a work of art rather than as a pamphlet.
Like I said, there are a lot of bad plots.
>
> There may or not be such a thing as a "bad" message, but that implies that
> there's no such thing as a "good" one either.
If a dichotomy doesn't really exist this does not necessarily mean its
components don't exist either. I think 'good' and 'bad' are context friendly and
not 'non-existant' or anything such. If something has a message that already
implies its good since obviously anything which has nothing to teach me doesn't
contain a message.
M.H.Benders
Aidan Tynan
>>
>> I usually factor out the author to a great degree (or to whatever degree
is
>> valuable/necessary) while reading. As such, I'm not really interested in
>> what the author is trying to say, but what the poem is saying and how.
>
>This makes no sense..
Well, it's pretty much the 'standard' (ever since new criticism [1950s],
structuralism, reader response/reception theory, Death of the Author) way of
approaching a text in academic circles (unless you happen to be a Victorian
or a phenomenologist). In other words, the poem is to be read and
interpreted, rather than the meaning in it to be 'inherited' from the
author, who becomes just another reader and interpreter like the rest of us.
Otherwise, we have to assume there is *one* dominant interpretation (ie, the
author's); this is known as intentional fallacy, btw, and Wimsatt wrote
about it way back when.
>are you attempting surrealism here?
now *that* makes no sense ...
>The poem is simply a stack of words, it doesn't say anything,
>it is lifeless, and never had a mouth. Anthropromorphizing a poem
>makes no logical sense.
The words are 'lifeless' until they are *read*.
>
>The consciousness that stacked the words is the one saying something.
Once the words leave that consciousness, (since words say nothing without
interpretation) they assume a polysemic, multivalent position within a
common discourse.
>
>> the Russian formalists saw literature as foregrounding
>> the word, bringing it away from its position as signifier, a carrier of
>> prepackaged meaning, to the point where it started to take on an
autonomous
>> life of its own inside the text.
>
>Yeah, and then there is the easter bunny, and the tooth fairy and
>of course spirituality and religion. (see above.)
I have no idea what you mean here ...
-Aidan
Tom Bishop
>
>
> >>
> >> I usually factor out the author to a great degree (or to whatever degree
> is
> >> valuable/necessary) while reading. As such, I'm not really interested in
> >> what the author is trying to say, but what the poem is saying and how.
> >
> >This makes no sense..
>
> Well, it's pretty much the 'standard' (ever since new criticism [1950s],
> structuralism, reader response/reception theory, Death of the Author) way of
> approaching a text in academic circles (unless you happen to be a Victorian
> or a phenomenologist). In other words, the poem is to be read and
> interpreted, rather than the meaning in it to be 'inherited' from the
> author, who becomes just another reader and interpreter like the rest of us.
> Otherwise, we have to assume there is *one* dominant interpretation (ie, the
> author's); this is known as intentional fallacy, btw, and Wimsatt wrote
> about it way back when.
Appreciate the references, I am sincerely interested and not just
pounding my drum as if I had one, just an evolving concept of
/what I want my poetry to be/. I writhe around comically in that
pursuit. Not amusing to some, but all I can really do given /me/.
Brief.. sure there is more detailed.
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/Terms/Temp/intentional.html
I have no logical problem with this, but would contend that
in more than random chance the poet elicits (at least) some
unsurprising responses from readers.
> >are you attempting surrealism here?
>
> now *that* makes no sense ...
..I am more literal (in some ways) and when someone is saying
that the poem (divorced from the author) is /saying something/
I want to see its lips and mouth, and hear it talk in my ear.
The words to me, are just a collection of squiggles on a page/screen,
that cause readers to experience thoughts, visions, feelings.
Simply an artifice of communication (where the communicating
parties are limited to the homo sapien species).
> >The poem is simply a stack of words, it doesn't say anything,
> >it is lifeless, and never had a mouth. Anthropromorphizing a poem
> >makes no logical sense.
>
> The words are 'lifeless' until they are *read*.
It is probably not that useful to discuss, but I object to
attributing /life/ to inanimate objects, or concepts, except
in a poetic sense. (Which I seem to do frequently).
> >The consciousness that stacked the words is the one saying something.
>
> Once the words leave that consciousness, (since words say nothing without
> interpretation) they assume a polysemic, multivalent position within a
> common discourse.
Well sure, but that doesn't embue them with life,
at least not literally. It seems good to keep this in mind.
> >> the Russian formalists saw literature as foregrounding
> >> the word, bringing it away from its position as signifier, a carrier of
> >> prepackaged meaning, to the point where it started to take on an
> autonomous
> >> life of its own inside the text.
> >
> >Yeah, and then there is the easter bunny, and the tooth fairy and
> >of course spirituality and religion. (see above.)
>
> I have no idea what you mean here ...
More surrealism, fantasy (which is the category that I place such fluff
as religion and santa claus, the only difference being that religion is
many times more harmful/ridiculous than St. Nick).
>
>
> -Aidan
The main issue I am dealing with here is:
..how can I construct a poem so that it:
- elicits a response in as widely varied readers as possible
- that elicited response remains in the consciousness of the
reader for more than 40 seconds
I (in my evolving sense, not drum pounding) think that for
this to occur I must /communicate/ something. [..I'm not picky
about what that is, but it seems unlikely to occur unless I have
something in mind to start with..]
Semantic ambiguity (I think) seems /a way/ for that communication
to:
- have greater appeal
- provoke thought
- allow the reader to make the message /their own/.
"Mystic Spin" and "Bright Song" ..were attempts at this.. (posted this weekend)
love your comments, as I would Dales, but he seems gone at this point.
Someone emailed me on Mystic Spin that "they didn't know why, but they liked it.
and connected with it." I'm sure they have their own reasons, which is fine with me,
but they would not have said "connected" unless they got some message (as in
there was a communication, something was said, other than random "nice" words,
[which doesn't seem hard, and in fact the tendency towards chaos seems innate]).
--
Tom Bishop
bafahall
humour and laughter is examined. It is made up of people from many different
academic fields - myself being one of the few "amateurs" taking part.
The field has long been dominated by the linguists, who subscribe to a
particular theory of humour and laughter, aspects of which are diametrically
opposed to my own ideas.
It is my belief that the laughter process is triggered at a much deeper
level than the linguists suppose, and is dependent on conflicting emotive
sub-contexts engendered in areas of the brain that apprehended the world in
terms of percepts and emotions long before the advent of language.
Meaning has as much to do with emotion as it has with semantics as without
an emotive sub-context language can be rendered meaningless.
I think these consideration are particularly pertinent to the debate taking
place in this thread.
Something can be said to have meaning for an individual if there is a neural
system in place ( whether innate or learned ) that can process the
information it contains or set in train specific reactions.
Dangle a piece of wood of a particular shape ( with a bulging under-surface)
in a pond and the male stickleback will go through its mating behaviour. A
female stickleback that does not have a swollen abdomen will not stimulate
the male. A bulging abdomen has meaning for the male stickleback. The
female, for her part, is stimulated by the males colouring, which reddens in
the breeding season.
We have two distinct types of meaning in this example: The swollen abdomen
has a rational meaning, in the sense that the symbol that elicits the
behaviour is directly related to the function of the behaviour. (Swollen
abdomen means eggs to be fertilised) The symbol that stimulates the female
(redness) is arbitrary, and in this sense, irrational.
The problem is that an individual´s indoctrinated systems of premises,
rules, laws, religious taboos, etc may be erroneous or irrational, but this
does not prevent events and ideas that are mediated by these systems being
meaningful and evoking emotion in that particular individual.
When someone tells me that Jesus has saved me, the sentence holds little
meaning (unless I nearly drowned and someone called Jesus pulled me to
safety): but to the believer the sentence has a very clear semantic and
strongly emotive meaning.
Meaning does not only depend on the "programmes" in your brain, there is
also an area called the ventromedial cortex where emotion is experienced and
meaning bestowed on perceptions. This area is overstimulated during the
manic stage of manic depression, and also gives rise to a strange phenomenon
some of you may have experienced. Some individuals wake up in the middle of
the night with an idea in their heads that is so meaningful that they feel
it will change the world. By morning they have forgotten it. Some have had
the presence of mind to write it down before they fell back to sleep. In all
cases the idea has been nonsense, of the order: Egyptian tanks run best on
boiled cabbage. It seems that meaningful episodes, or should I say episodes
that are perceived as wonderfully coherent and full of meaning, occur when,
for what ever reason, neural traffic is directed through the ventromedial
cortex.
So, the appreciation of ideas and events as meaningful depends on one´s
beliefs and knowledge, and whether or not one has a healthy flow of neural
traffic through specific areas of the brain.
This means we are all capable, to varying degrees, at at various times, of
finding meaning in almost anything. We only have to mentally attach
ourselves to something - a movement, a football team - for emotion to be
evoked when it is mentioned or we take part in its activities.
Australian Rules football was a complete mystery to me when I first came
across it, but having learned a few of the rules, the activity on the field
became more meaningful to me.
If I had started to support one team, learned all about the individual
players and their private lives, the whole thing would have become
particularly important and meaningful - although the opera lover, the
chess-player, might wonder why.
In the end there is no such thing as a good or bad poem, there are only
poems that are effective or not effective in particular contexts. If I go
out to make an audience laugh, and the audience does laugh, then the my
poem has been effective. If I go out to make an audience feel (on a personal
level rather than on an intellectual level) and their faces tell me that
they are feeling the emotions expressed in the poem , again the poem has
been effective. The evocation of these bodily reactions may be viewed as
cheap by some, but the poems have been effective - meaningful to the
particular audience.
I can see why Tom stops open mouthed before one of Dale´s poems: how can he
critique a poem that does not conform to anything in his poetry rule book?
Dale is in danger of being dumped in the same category as psychics, mystics
and even the followers of esoteric religion, and lays himself open to the
same accusations of charlatanism these types attract.
I have little doubt concerning Dale´s sincerity, the pertinent questions
are: what is the source and nature of Dale´s images ?, and: if individuals
say the images have meaning beyond mere semantics and the pleasing
arrangement of words, are their protestations genuine ( is there a direct
link between the images and any inner experience the images evoke) or they
just being pretentious twits ? (Like the wankers one often hears
pontificating in art galleries)
If I follow Dale correctly, it seems he is accessing the divergent
processing typical of the right brain. This is the web of associations, a
word or sentence elicits, and may well correspond to the preverbal percepts
and emotions I mentioned earlier. The evolution of science has gone hand in
hand with the evolution of language - both products of convergent
processing typical of the left brain. This, to some extent, explains why
some poets discourage the use of prosaic language and others, like Dale ,
produce extreme works which are created so close to the interface between
the verbal and non-verbal that they often defy rational analysis.
Dale´s poetry will always be hit and miss because it depends on the timing
of his poetic lunge through the worm hole that separates the verbal and
non-verbal universes. He blindly grabs what is flying past at the time, and
may pull through dislocated emotionally defined percepts that cannot be
decoded into meaning accessible to a consciousness, which in modern western
man so depends on verbal definitions (concepts). It is probable that the
accessibility of any of his poems depends on the degree of interference from
the areas of his brain that attempt to weave disparate entities into a
coherent whole immediately before delivery to consciousness.
Those Aborigines, in Australia, who have had little contact with the
European probably process information in the manner Dale strives for in his
work. I do not believe we can exist fully in both universes, and areas of
the brain trained to routinely apprehend the rational are always going to
interfere in the production of art unless they are drugged into oblivion.
We have degraded metaphor to the level of a literary device simply because
we are no longer able to access the metaphorical as a function of the brain.
For sci-man, as opposed to tri-man, all metaphors are immediately translated
into similes.(Thank you Aristotle)
I am entranced when I watch (on TV sadly) an Aborigine doing an emu dance,
but I still see a man moving LIKE an emu. When the Aborigine dances he
BECOMES an emu and is perceived by his fellows AS an emu.
I have yabbered on for long enough, but you might be interested in the
article below as it demonstrates how certain brain states can imbue things
with a depth of meaning that they do not deserve.(William James and laughing
gas)
http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/jnitrous.html
Basil.
Dale Houstman
"bafahall" <bafa...@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message
news:PIZI8.4670$EZ5.5...@news.xtra.co.nz...
> I belong to a group, Humour Research Discussion List, where the nature of
> humour and laughter is examined. It is made up of people from many
different
> academic fields - myself being one of the few "amateurs" taking part.
>
> The field has long been dominated by the linguists, who subscribe to a
> particular theory of humour and laughter, aspects of which are
diametrically
> opposed to my own ideas.
> It is my belief that the laughter process is triggered at a much deeper
> level than the linguists suppose, and is dependent on conflicting emotive
> sub-contexts engendered in areas of the brain that apprehended the world
in
> terms of percepts and emotions long before the advent of language.
This is true of course, but - I think - it is obviously so. When one watches
a man slip on a banana peel and laughs, all that needs to be said about the
strange nature of humor is being said. It doesn't require linguistics and it
seems to thrive on a fracture of socialization ("one must feel empathy for
those in distress"). In silent films the eventual butt of most jokes is a
figure of authority: a cop, a professor, a rich man. So humor - as the
surrealists knew - is revolutionary.
>
> Meaning has as much to do with emotion as it has with semantics as
without
> an emotive sub-context language can be rendered meaningless.
>
> I think these consideration are particularly pertinent to the debate
taking
> place in this thread.
Many have already fallen into their campfire at this point, Basil. While the
Kumbayas have stopped, a certain air of "wha?" is slowly rising in the
darkness. This air is - for most - impermeable stuff.
>
>
> This means we are all capable, to varying degrees, at at various times, of
> finding meaning in almost anything. We only have to mentally attach
> ourselves to something - a movement, a football team - for emotion to be
> evoked when it is mentioned or we take part in its activities.
I think humans always find meaning, it is difficult to avoid, as humans have
developed their pattern-recognizing abilities to a rapturous level. The ease
of this process is what makes it amusing to me when I see so many working so
hard to achieve "meaning" when - in truth - it is almost impossible to
avoid. I take it as a given. Now what the meaning of meaning is remains an
entirely different question: I think it is easy to discern (although
resistance here seems a bit overwrought) the connections of my piece (again:
good or bad. I am NOT claiming anything for it), but what do they mean? This
is where your personal emotional reactions (stimulated by archetypes) come
in. I think it is not too obscuring of myself to think that most people have
personal and societal reactions to - say - a "dress" and the idea of fashion
and uniform. That so many resist this easy lacing is perhaps numbing, but
it's nothing new to me.
)
>
> In the end there is no such thing as a good or bad poem, there are only
> poems that are effective or not effective in particular contexts. If I go
> out to make an audience laugh, and the audience does laugh, then the my
> poem has been effective. If I go out to make an audience feel (on a
personal
> level rather than on an intellectual level) and their faces tell me that
> they are feeling the emotions expressed in the poem , again the poem has
> been effective. The evocation of these bodily reactions may be viewed as
> cheap by some, but the poems have been effective - meaningful to the
> particular audience.
>
> I can see why Tom stops open mouthed before one of Dale´s poems: how can
he
> critique a poem that does not conform to anything in his poetry rule book?
The same way I did and do: allow oneself to be "captured" if only
temporarily. This involves imagination of course, which is a willingness to
go down strange pathways and - unlike faith - to bring one's wits with you.
I do put this entire affair down to a lack of imagination on some people's
parts. Why there should be such a dearth of this quality in a supposed
poetry group is perhaps puzzling, but one only needs to take a few poetry
classes to discover the reason: most people come to poetry via journals and
a need for therapeutic action. They think they have something to say and -
by gum - they're going to say it until you're sick of it. Few come to poetry
as an adventure into new knowledge and new emotions.
>
> Dale is in danger of being dumped in the same category as psychics,
mystics
> and even the followers of esoteric religion, and lays himself open to the
> same accusations of charlatanism these types attract.
Yes, but unlike them I do not actually care if this happens, because I do
not have a product to flog, or a belief system to promulgate at the cost of
my soul.
>
>
> If I follow Dale correctly, it seems he is accessing the divergent
> processing typical of the right brain. This is the web of associations, a
> word or sentence elicits, and may well correspond to the preverbal
percepts
> and emotions I mentioned earlier. The evolution of science has gone hand
in
> hand with the evolution of language - both products of convergent
> processing typical of the left brain. This, to some extent, explains why
> some poets discourage the use of prosaic language and others, like Dale
,
> produce extreme works which are created so close to the interface between
> the verbal and non-verbal that they often defy rational analysis.
I don't really buy this "right brain/left brain" notion, at least as a
general theory of types and actions. Modern neurology has found that the
brain is strongly holographic, in that many of the general functions are
"mirrored" in many different areas. The brain is another redundant system.
so while speech may be most efficiently run from a discernible section of
the brain, even if it is damaged, people can often form new neural networks
to gain some speech back. I'm ambidexterous, does this mean anything? I
don't know.
>
> Dale´s poetry will always be hit and miss because it depends on the timing
> of his poetic lunge through the worm hole that separates the verbal and
> non-verbal universes. He blindly grabs what is flying past at the time,
and
> may pull through dislocated emotionally defined percepts that cannot
be
> decoded into meaning accessible to a consciousness, which in modern
western
> man so depends on verbal definitions (concepts). It is probable that the
> accessibility of any of his poems depends on the degree of interference
from
> the areas of his brain that attempt to weave disparate entities into a
> coherent whole immediately before delivery to consciousness.
This is a thick woods to go through to find granny's house. And it's not
entirely factual to the case. The truth is I construct my poems much like
others make chairs. From disparate parts certainly, but engineered to relate
to one another so as to perform their function. Now I know that function may
(like an artifact dug from a desert hole) not be apparent to everyone, but
the structure is, and the parts support one another. As for being my poetry
being "hit or miss" perhaps you meant that its reception will be "hit or
miss." The poems themselves are carefully built, and - when they work - they
continue to work. I see nothing hit or miss about them.
>
> Those Aborigines, in Australia, who have had little contact with the
> European probably process information in the manner Dale strives for in
his
> work. I do not believe we can exist fully in both universes, and areas of
> the brain trained to routinely apprehend the rational are always going to
> interfere in the production of art unless they are drugged into oblivion.
Good idea.
>
> We have degraded metaphor to the level of a literary device simply because
> we are no longer able to access the metaphorical as a function of the
brain.
> For sci-man, as opposed to tri-man, all metaphors are immediately
translated
> into similes.(Thank you Aristotle)
This I grasp. The surrealists abhorred the use of the word "comme" ("like")
because they saw it (rightly I think) as a crime against true metaphor and
metamorphosis, a cowering in the face of alchemical change which gives forth
the small lead pellets of simile.
>